David Hughes is the Daily Telegraph's chief leader writer. He has been covering British politics for 30 years.

Lord Hattersley has the wrong end of the stick, again

Lord Hattersley is always excellent entertainment. He's a man for whom the wrong end of the stick was specifically designed. This morning on the Today programme he came up with the belting observation that while this newspaper devoted nine pages to MPs' expenses on the first day of our revelations – and he generously ceded that he had no complaints about that – Â we devoted just one column inch to a story reporting that the gap between rich and poor is widening.

That's vintage Hattersley – pious and bogus in equal measure. Just two points, Roy. First, those nine pages we devoted to the cupidity of the political classes were a perfect illustration of the way the gap between the rich and the poor is widening, though Hattersley probably wouldn't see it that way.

Second, the Labour Government which Hattersley supports has been in power for 12 years. Isn't the fact that the wealth gap is widening a damning indictment of New Labour? Funny, but he didn't mention that.